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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124702">there wouldn't be a reason why</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobblestaubrey/pseuds/cobblestaubrey'>cobblestaubrey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>c'est la vie [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RuPaul's Drag Race (US) RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - High School, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/F, Post-Break Up, i love writing Gigi, mentions of unrequited love, there's also a lot of Gigi's POV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:47:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27124702</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobblestaubrey/pseuds/cobblestaubrey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"'Put the phone down, Jackie'</p><p>'I just-'</p><p>'Put the fucking phone down. Now.'</p><p>Gigi can’t handle the sobbing anymore. She can’t listen to Jackie’s heart being ripped out by her own hands, she can’t look at Jackie’s decaying body on the floor any longer."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gigi Goode/Crystal Methyd (past), Jackie Cox/Jan Sport, Nicky Doll/Crystal Methyd (mentioned) - Relationship, Nicky Doll/Rock M Sakura (one-sided)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>c'est la vie [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979863</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>there wouldn't be a reason why</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Read angst. Went “wow that hurts”. Wrote angst in response. Awesome LOL</p><p>This story is in the same universe as my teenage dirtbag Crygi, but it doesn’t really matter if you’ve read that one, it’s set like a month after, so right at the end of a school year, I guess? LIke early June. This one is loosely based on the song “if the world was ending” by JP Saxe. </p><p>After watching the Firework lip sync for the thirtieth time, I wanted to put more of Jackie’s culture in this story. I rarely see stories that include Jackie with a hijab, and even now, I’m afraid of messing up, but that runway was just so powerful.</p><p>This story has a very clear motif bc I am not subtle. I love motifs.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Put the phone down, Jackie”</p><p>“I just-”</p><p>“Put the fucking phone down. <em> Now</em>.” </p><p>Gigi can’t handle the sobbing anymore. She can’t listen to Jackie’s heart being ripped out by her own hands, she can’t look at Jackie’s decaying body on the floor any longer. </p><p>She kneels down to Jackie’s level, rubbing circles on the girl’s back. “She’s not going to listen to whatever stupid song you send her.” </p><p>Jackie clutches her phone closer to her body, turning down the brightness so Gigi can’t see whatever she’s said to Jan, it’s all just blobs of text and links. </p><p>“I just want her to hear this.”</p><p>“It’s been on the radio for weeks, Jackie. If it reminded her of you, she wouldn’t have told you, anyway.”</p><p>She wouldn’t have.</p><p>Jackie flips over, adjusting her hijab as she does. In a flash, she’s throwing her phone across the room. Gigi wants to yell at her, tell her that she’s being careless, could have hit something, or broke something, but it doesn’t matter. Jackie’s fucked. </p><p>“She’d come over, right?”</p><p>Gigi scoffs, because what else can she do? “Oh fuck off, Jackie. Get your ass off my floor. It’s been a month.”</p><p>The sniffling and the crying and the stupid fucking sentiments have been the soundtrack to their hangouts for weeks, she’s sick of Jackie and her moping. The human version of a driving force, the definition of “it gets better”, she’s been destroyed. She died off, she’s been replaced with some weak skeleton, some frail little girl who can’t go to English class anymore because her muse destroyed her canvas. </p><p>“She loved me,” Jackie whimpers. </p><p>She’s reaching out to grab at the ceiling, now. She’ll never reach it, Gigi thinks, kicking herself for inviting Jackie over again. Without her, though, Jackie won’t eat. She won’t sleep, so she’ll barely scrape by, just passing in her work, avoiding eyes in the hallway, keeping her body taut when all she wants to do is fall apart. </p><p>Gigi shrugs, sticking splinters into Jackie’s heart. “Not enough.”</p><p>“She said she did. Not in those words, but...” </p><p>Jackie’s petulant, she always is, when she repeats this to herself. They go through these motions every weekend. Jackie feels brave, like the knife that’s been lodged in her esophagus that’s kept her up against her will has fallen, and she falls too, right onto the ground. All she can do is find something to send, even though she never gets a message back. The links still deliver, she’s not blocked, but there’s no read receipt and there’s no response. She waits with bated breath, a breath that never comes out, that gets stuck in her throat, sealing her fate. </p><p>“What else did she say?” Gigi urges, grabbing at Jackie’s wrist. “Wrong time, wrong place,” she squeezes twice. </p><p>“Right person,” Jackie mumbles. </p><p>“Doesn’t matter.”</p>
<hr/><p>It never matters, Jackie surmises, staring at the ceiling fan going around and around. Sometimes, late at night, she falls asleep with her earbuds in, waking up in a haze of lyrics and bedsheets. The song will have seeped into her dreams, waking her up just before the climax, right before she can find Jan again. </p><p>Jan’s name has been a breath away for thirty six days, but it never comes through. </p><p>Her eyes prick with fresh tears, but they never fall, and she’ll never fall again, she thinks. </p><p>
  <em> When Jan played the piano, Jackie’s eyes always followed. Her heart hit every note, and Jackie felt like a puppet strung up by her heart strings. The blonde rarely played minor chords - she didn’t like the way they crashed against each other, the dissonance sounded brutal, she never understood it, she’d say. Some afternoons, though, she would hit a C sharp, an F sharp, an A, and it would blend in, it would make sense.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jackie could feel those notes reverberate through her ribs, knocking into each other, sending gasps through her body. Jan had told her, Jackie didn’t have to listen. She practiced daily, she couldn’t help it, but she couldn’t ask Jackie to leave, either. All they had were their weekends, but Jan also had her piano, and she needed to play. Jackie stayed, always, watching the way Jan’s fingers splayed across her keys, usually so dainty, so soft, the same way Jan would hold her own hand. Sometimes, when Jan was afraid or upset, she would clutch at Jackie’s hands, squeezing her fingers too hard, slamming her hands into the ivory keys. Jan would pull Jackie into a bruising kiss, their teeth meeting harshly, and Jan would lean back in her piano stool, her back meeting the keys and sending discourse throughout the room.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jan had told her in a whisper that they weren’t meant for now. Nothing had ever paused her world like those words, and all she wished for was another sound. Something other than the sound of Jan’s voice, scratchy, repeating herself, something that would drown out Jackie’s tears, falling to the floor like pins dropping, crashing. She would grab the cloth around her head, pulling it so it closed over her ears. It didn’t help, but it comforted her. </em>
</p><p>She wonders what she did wrong during nights. She saves that discussion for dusk, when she’s most vulnerable and can be honest. She tells herself that Jan is lying on her back, too, looking out her east window at the same moon Jackie traces the shape of, a rhythm that keeps her breathing in check. </p><p>During the day, Jackie’s eyes close on their own accord, the lights of the classroom dancing under her eyelids. Her fingers tap a steady rhythm on her desk, and she’s counting out each repeat, wondering if anyone else can hear her. She can always feel herself swaying to some other deafened beat, before falling forward onto her desk. </p><p>Sleep scares her. </p><p>She’s supposed to spend a third of her entire lifetime on Earth asleep. That one third of her life is an entire other world, telling her secrets she has kept from herself, and suddenly she’s free falling, or she’s hurting, or she’s flying. Sometimes, she can make out a face, a girl with a small nose that drops at the end, with bright, brown eyes that sing at her, but a shy smile. It warms her, building that fire that she had put out, kissing each and every one of Jackie’s bruises, on her heart, on her cheeks, on her chest. </p><p>Jackie wakes up in English, sometimes. Just sometimes. Jan’s there, she always is, just a few seats away. Those same brown eyes scrape down Jackie’s face, down her frame. She’s lost weight, she knows it, but she still fits in most of her clothes. It’s only been a month, she whispers to herself, it’s not that bad. It’s not irreversible. It’s not worrying. </p><p>She’s worried, Jackie thinks to herself. Jan is <em> worried</em>. </p><p>There’s radio silence from the blonde’s end, though, the receiver’s broken. </p><p>“She’s not worth it,” Rock spits out bitterly. </p><p>They sit on the hood of Rock’s car, an old, used Honda, with the radio blasting from inside. It switches between whiny, punk songs that seep into Jackie’s bones, lyrics that don’t quite match up to her, but step just hard enough on the spade to cut deep, and foreign music. She doesn’t understand what or who the song is about, so she pays attention to the instruments, the way they’re stacked and mixed so perfectly, it’s like one voice is singing, and the other is whispering, rumbling through the car and down her legs. </p><p>She looks over to her friend, tracing the bridge of her nose and down her lips, at her trembling chin. The wind is whistling around them, kissing the loose ends of Jackie’s sweatshirt, but Rock looks completely unbothered by it all. Her forehead is creased, the ridge of her brow lowered. </p><p>Roxanne, Jackie surmises, is full of too much teen angst and too many narcotics. They’re two heads of the same coin, the same loser on different ends of the spectrum. </p><p>
  <em> Rock fell for a pretty blonde who smiled sweetly and whose voice spread through her body like an upright bass, and Rock felt like she was played like one, too. Nicky had held her hand and leaned forward, dangerously close, letting her perfume dangle in front of Rock’s face, but never closer.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jackie had fallen for a girl who had the world at her fingertips, and the future between her teeth. Jan exuded confidence in every aspect of her life, except for her life with Jackie. Something was always there, cacophonies, words she couldn’t tell Jackie until they built up inside of her and screamed.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Rock cursed love, watching Nicky saunter down the hallway with a girl who was everything Rock wanted to be, and slammed her fists against her locker, tracing the dents with a bruised knuckle.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Jackie would slide down her locker instead, pressing her palm at the outline of her ears because of the harsh, piercing squeals that echoed behind her.  </em>
</p><p>Jackie shakes her head, wondering if Rock knows how love really feels. How, even if they break you, it’s never really anger. It’s a sinking feeling, a low rumble in the pit of her stomach, and it makes it hard to eat. It’s sickly, pushing and punching at her, and it makes her eyes feel heavy. It’s hard to fight for so long, she tells Rock, so you just fall. </p><p>“You fall apart,” she says, finally understanding what it means. </p><p>Picturing buildings collapsing, she describes the way her breath leaves her, a high pitched whine that escapes in the last moments, before her legs slip away. Her whole body shakes in anticipation, before she feels higher than she’s felt before, despite tumbling down and never landing. </p><p>Rock watches with mild concern, offering up a blunt that Jackie vehemently denies. She can’t let something else make her happy, not when the voices in her ear won’t quiet, with or without the drug. </p><p>“Do you think she feels the same?” Rock asks, and her eyes are wide and unassuming. </p><p>Jackie shrugs. Jan still walks the hall to the same beat, but her eyes never wander too far from Jackie. The way Jan answers questions is subdued, now, never too long, like she thinks the longer she trails on, the worse Jackie will get. Her voice used to flow up and down the scales, and now it lands just below her tessitura, cracking at the ends. </p><p>“No,” Jackie finally answers, staring off at the trees in front of them. </p>
<hr/><p>Gigi shouldn’t be doing this, but she’s never been above meddling in other people’s lives. Jan is alone in a practice room, as she always is after school, going through her scales. These rooms are supposed to be soundproof, but Jan’s voice still passes through every wall, digging its way into her chest.</p><p>Gigi knocks loudly on the wooden door, peering through the glass pane in the middle. She mouths ‘open up’ to Jan, who looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Gigi’s voice is the car horn, warning her, so Jan opens up, albeit reluctantly.</p><p>The two haven’t really spoken, not for years. Sure, in middle school, there was some semblance of a friendship there, but once high school hit, a fork in the road split them, and neither looked across their own paths. </p><p>“Hi,” Jan breathes out, running her fingers through a strand of hair over her left shoulder. “Why…” </p><p>Jan doesn’t finish that thought, she isn’t sure how, Gigi can see. Confusion flashes across her face, and a little bit of fear, but it doesn’t bother Gigi. She’s not here to make amends.</p><p>“Why did you break up with Jackie.” </p><p>Her stare is cold, and she can hear Jan swallow thickly inches away. Jackie has been deteriorating slowly, but not subtly. Jan, however, as Gigi looks closer, is cracking at the edges, her tone seeping out of her. </p><p>“Honestly, that’s none of your business.”</p><p>Gigi raises a warning eyebrow, smirking at the shorter girl. </p><p>“It became my business when her tears stained my rug.” </p><p>Gigi knows she isn’t heartless. She lost two people in the same night - one she loved, and one she wanted to love - and both left with someone else. The way the tears had made their way down her cheeks, leaving violin string streaks in her mascara, the way her heart pounded against her chest, trying its best to break free, the way her lungs tied themselves into knots and poked holes at her skin, it's all retrospective. She knows heartbreak, and she knows what she’s doing right now probably isn’t the best idea. </p><p>It doesn’t really matter, though. </p><p>“That isn’t my business, either,” Jan tries, sidestepping Gigi to make her way back to the piano. </p><p>Gigi rolls her eyes. Jan’s interest is piqued, regardless of how she’s denying it, because she cares. She wants to know how Jackie’s doing instead of just inferring. </p><p>Gigi knows this, because the piano isn’t on. Jan has been singing, but she hasn’t turned the piano on. Something else breaks when your heart puts itself back together. </p><p>Gigi puts her hand on the top of the keyboard, walking around it to scope out whatever sheet music Jan has lined up. It’s from a musical Gigi can’t pinpoint, but there’s five or so flats, and Gigi wonders if this is her way of telling Jackie how she feels. Jackie sends songs that sit so deeply in her heart, that remind her so brutally of Jan, that she could have written them herself. </p><p>Jan sits alone in practice rooms and sings songs she once knew, that she now understands, like they were rewritten before her eyes. </p><p>“Is there someone else?” Gigi throws out. </p><p>She hopes there isn’t. That’s a pain you never really get over. </p><p>Jans shakes her head, staring at the keys before her. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, but she won’t look Gigi in the eye. The brunette wants to feel bad, but she’s sick of Jackie and she’s sick of Jan, and she’s sick of seeing them stare at each other when they think the other isn’t looking. </p><p>The silence is killing her. “Okay, then what?”</p><p>Jan looks nauseous, her lips trembling. She’s trying not to frown, biting her lip, tears welling up in her eyes. </p><p>“I said, right person, wrong time-”</p><p>“Cut the crap. That’s the most cliche play in the book.” </p><p>Jan speaks again immediately, an outburst that’s probably been a long time coming. “How do you know if you love someone, or you’re in love with them?”</p><p>The question makes Gigi falter, genuinely. “Um…”</p><p>“Is that a dumb question?” </p><p>“No,” Gigi says quickly, her forehead creasing. “When you... <em> love </em> someone, you care for them. You like being around them. You want them to be happy.” </p><p>She moves forward once more, making Jan scoot forward so she can sit on the piano bench with her. </p><p>“When you’re in love with someone, you wake up everyday, knowing that,” Gigi swallows, tracing the indents between the keys. “Knowing that you love somebody, and that’s enough. That the day will be a good day if they’re in it.”</p><p>Crystal comes to mind, of course she fucking does, but her memory doesn’t sink as fast as it has before. It’s sort of muddled, floating upwards after it falls down. </p><p>Gigi thinks over her words with caution, for what feels like the first time. “You can sit with them and never say a word, but their hand in yours keeps you from going too far.” This feels so fucking stupid to say, but it’s true, and Jan needs to hear it. “You try for them, more than anyone else. You want them to be happy, but you want to be happy, too, so they don’t have to worry about you.” </p><p>Jan’s nodding along, opening and closing her mouth, but saying nothing. Silence sits on the bench, too, cozied up between them. It makes Gigi anxious, so she fidgets, tapping her left sneaker on the floor. </p><p>“Jackie was in love with me, but I didn’t know if I was in love with her,” Jan speaks, but this time, Gigi isn’t surprised. </p><p>“Why?” Gigi whispers, finally tilting to her head to meet Jan’s eyes.</p><p>“The excitement and new feeling, they all… faded,” she speaks softly, in a breathy tone that lulls Gigi. “It was too <em> comfortable</em>.” </p><p>“You weren’t happy?”</p><p>“I was happy,” Jan wipes at her eyes with her sleeves. They go past her hands and are frayed at the ends, and it makes Jan look much younger than eighteen. “But things became routine. I don’t know.” </p><p>It’s like a switch is flicked. Jan slams her hands onto her lap, startling Gigi. Sobs start ringing out, they’re high pitched and whiny, and they scare Gigi more than anything. Jan has always been so composed, but here she was with her cheeks red, and her lips upturned, throwing her head into her hands. </p><p>“Hey, hey!” Gigi tries, wrapping her hands around Jan’s shoulders. “It’s okay.”</p><p>“It’s not okay!” Jan groans out. </p><p>“You wanted more, that’s fine!”</p><p>“I didn’t want more! I liked what we had!”</p><p>Gigi is completely bewildered. She’s not following any of this. “Then - then why did you break up with her?” </p><p>“Because she said she loved me!” Jan throws her head back, smacking it against the brick behind her. “And I said I loved her because I did, I do. But I’m seventeen, and I thought I was being stupid, and blind, and it felt <em> so </em> normal to just sit there with her and do nothing!”</p><p>“You’re in love with her,” Gigi says, finally, after a long gap of silence. The sentence breathes new life back into Jan, who has folded herself like an accordion. She stretches back out, wheezing. Gigi can see the inner torment, the beration, and it hurts her to know that she has been Jan, that she was happy, and she threw it away because she was scared. </p><p>“I am. I didn’t want to be, Gigi. I don’t want to be in love with her,” Jan shakes her head. </p><p>The parallels are suffocating.</p><p>
  <em>"Tell me you don't love me."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Crystal's voice had never been so low, so full of pain, and layers of anger. "Well?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"I do," she choked out, burning in embarrassment at the tears that began to fall. “But I shouldn’t.”</em>
</p><p>“What are you so afraid of?” Gigi asks, against her own volition. </p><p>Jan shrugs helplessly, her breath coming out ragged. “Falling <em> out </em> of love with her.”</p><p>“You know just because you don’t acknowledge it, doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Gigi nudges Jan’s shoulder. “You’re still in love with her, and you’ll fall out of love if you keep pushing her away.”</p><p>Jan sighs. “It doesn't matter.”</p><p>
  <em>“It doesn’t matter, Geege.”</em>
</p><p>“It <em>does</em>.”</p><p>Gigi wants to resent Jan. She wants to hate her, for being a version of her she wishes she could be. Jan is fearless, and loving, and will listen. </p><p>Gigi didn’t follow Crystal. </p><p>“You need to fix this,” Gigi starts, putting her hand under Jan’s chin to turn her towards her. It’s a little too close for either of their comforts, and Jan is right, they haven’t spoken for years, but it doesn’t matter anymore. “You caused this, go fix it.” </p><p>Her tone is raspy, she’s on the brink of her own tears, but she can’t let Jan know that. Jan needs to leave right now, and go find Jackie, so Gigi can sit in this practice room and sob. </p><p>“What if she doesn’t want me?”</p><p>"Don't kid yourself," Gigi rolls her eyes, painfully, inching further onto the piano bench to push Jan off of it. “Stop making excuses and leave.”</p><p>Jan stands up before she falls altogether, before walking towards the door to the practice room. She pauses at the handle, her head turning the slightest bit, but she doesn’t look back at Gigi. When she’s fully out of the door, Gigi’s facade cracks, slowly at first. </p><p>Her eyes fall to the ground, tracing over the linoleum below her. The blobs of color become blurrier, until she realizes her tears have distorted her vision, but she doesn’t have the strength to wipe them away, either. The sound of her sniffles and wheezes suffocate her, and her heart is banging against her chest, begging to be let out, to love, to feel anything. </p><p>She kind of understands why Jackie messaged Jan so many times, despite not getting a response. She doesn’t want to hear what Crystal has to say, but she wants to tell her the truth, she wants her back. She wasted so much time pushing her away, watching her leave, she wants to see her again.</p><p>It’s why she still goes to the park a few nights a week, when the moon hangs what appears to be mere feet from the North Star. </p><p>Crystal never comes, though. Crystal’s with Nicky, now, and walks down the hallway with her, puts her arm around Nicky like Nicky is her girl. </p><p>Gigi feels like she’s Crystal’s, too, even now. Even if Crystal doesn’t want her.</p><p>Gigi’s whines are falsetto.</p>
<hr/><p>For the first time in weeks, Jackie suffers through an entire meal. Her body is screaming against it, but Jackie <em> needs </em> to eat. It’s comforting, in a way, and she thinks she might sleep a few more hours tonight. </p><p>There’s still that dull, clawing sensation in her chest, but she ignores it. An empty bowl of soup is on her desk, several textbooks are scattered around her bed, opened up and covered in sticky notes, and her eyes are drier. She’s still listening to that stupid playlist she made. There are sixteen songs she puts on repeat, and they’re sad, sure, but now they’re familiar. It means that there are people out there who feel just like her, or did at some point, and she can get past this like they did.</p><p>Her mom calls her name from down the stairs, so Jackie gets up, calling back to her that she’ll be down in a second. She opens her door, unsure of what her mother could want, and makes her way down the hall.</p><p>She’s humming the song that’s playing in her room, growing quieter as she approaches the stairs. Then, she stops all together.</p><p>Jan is at the bottom, with her lip tucked between her teeth, and her heart on her sleeve.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It didn’t feel right to end this with their reconciliation. I’m not sure why.</p><p>The ending is whatever you make of it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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